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Re: 2017 (Too Early) SoCon Football Predictions

It appears to be a 3 way race for this league. But I wanna say Furman is a dark horse. They brought in Charleston Southerns defensive staff, and that staff was brilliant against option teams. They were one of the only staffs who bottled up Citadel and Woffords option attack (still lost to Wofford though) as well as other option teams they faced.

Wouldnt be shocked at all if Furman finishes 2nd or 3rd...or better. Maybe not in year 1 of the new staff. But soon.

Re: 2017 (Too Early) SoCon Football Predictions

Originally Posted by Bucs2016

It appears to be a 3 way race for this league. But I wanna say Furman is a dark horse. They brought in Charleston Southerns defensive staff, and that staff was brilliant against option teams. They were one of the only staffs who bottled up Citadel and Woffords option attack (still lost to Wofford though) as well as other option teams they faced.

Wouldn't be shocked at all if Furman finishes 2nd or 3rd...or better. Maybe not in year 1 of the new staff. But soon.

That is a great point. Was thinking it will take a year or so for Furman to have time to install changes and move back into contention.

Re: 2017 (Too Early) SoCon Football Predictions

Originally Posted by youcanbankit

That is a great point. Was thinking it will take a year or so for Furman to have time to install changes and move back into contention.

Yeah probably will. But im VERY high on Chad Staggs after seeing what he did with the CSU defense. Throttled the Citadel and Wofford option attacks. He held NDSU to 17 points in Fargo to force overtime. He will make Furmans defense very good very fast, especially against the run. And in that league right now if you can stop the option, thats huge. CSU did at times give up a lot of passing yards, but I think he can land secondary talent that's probably a little better than he had at CSU.

Re: 2017 (Too Early) SoCon Football Predictions

That is a great point. Was thinking it will take a year or so for Furman to have time to install changes and move back into contention.

There is a lot of excitement about the Furman program. Some have said it has been decades since they have seen this sort of buzz around Paladin football.

Offensively, I think Furman will be fine. We return most players off the offensive line two deep, have a solid group of capable running backs, some gifted wide receivers, and can hand the ball to a senior QB who already has a lot of the athletic traits you are looking for in this offense. It is hard to say exactly what the Furman offense will look like, but I think it will be difficult to prepare for in the conference.

Defensively, we will see. We graduated some talented players, but I think a 3-4 system is well suited to what Furman needs to do on defense. Chad Staggs has been really successful, and has seen a lot of the option during his time at Charleston Southern. Of course, Clay Hendrix was an offensive staff member that ran a lot of option at Air Force, so I expect they will have a pretty good idea on what to look for and how to defend it. As I have said before, I would be hard pressed to believe there is another program in D1 football that has seen the option as much as Furman has.

I am really impressed with Furman hires on the coaching staff. Hired a lot of guys that came from winning programs. Guys that know how to coach. Also hired a lot of guys that are philosophically aligned with what Hendrix wants to do on both sides of the ball. He made smart hires with the coordinators, and then filled in the staff with guys that already understand the system those coordinators want to run.

FU all the time.

"It's not like we didn't know what was coming. We just couldn't stop them" -WCU head coach Kent Briggs

"The game we know and love literally grew up in the Southern Conference. To find the foundation for ACC and SEC football, you have to go the league’s roots. To find an appreciation for a brand of football often-overlooked and seldom-appreciated, we as fans should do the same."

Re: 2017 (Too Early) SoCon Football Predictions

Originally Posted by Bucs2016

But im VERY high on Chad Staggs after seeing what he did with the CSU defense. Throttled the Citadel and Wofford option attacks. He will make Furmans defense very good very fast, especially against the run. And in that league right now if you can stop the option, thats huge.

Agree. Studied their 2015 1st game against El Cid very closely. They did a lot of interesting things with personnel groups and stunts/games on the end of the line to confuse the blockers and the QB. They were able to do this because they were able to stop the dive without having to fully commit 4-6 guys to get that piece done - pretty much stopped the dive (either way) with the 3 guys in the middle.

Also would point out that Mercer's D, with the exception of 1 play (70 yd TD on the 2nd play of the game) vs. El Cid, was rather solid against the TO in 2016 as well. Held CIT to 3.76 ypc (with the exception of that 70 yard run) & 11 1st downs rushing. CIT avg'd 5.37 ypc/18 1st downs rushing in 2016. They didn't fare quite so well the following week vs. GT as they took some time to get adjusted to FBS speed in their 1st game vs. an FBS Team in 75 years, but they weren't awful and the outcome was not determined until about 1/2way thru the 4th quarter. Finally, they played an outstanding game vs. Woffy's TO holding the LittleDogs to 205 yards/3.42 ypc and only 10 1st downs rushing - 2nd only to CSU's defense of their rushing game.

The Bears open with 2 TO Teams again in 2017 - 1st JacksonvilleU, then Woffy - both in Macon. Then they'll face their 3rd TO Opponent @ CIT 4 weeks later and, likely, another TO-based Team, @ Furman, 2 weeks after that. It will be interesting to see how having a reasonably solid 2016 vs. the TO and playing 7 games against the TO over the 2016-17 span will work out for Mercer this coming season.

On a more 'macro-level,' Furman should be able to defend the TO well with their familiarity with it as most of the Staff is from CSU or Air Force and, most likely, will be running a version of it themselves. Mercer seems to have it reasonably well figured out and El Cid and Woffy don't seem to be able to do to one another what they have been able to do to non-TO Teams. Didn't do the 'deep analysis' on it, but, at a glance, it appears that Sammy, ETSU, and WCU struggled to stop CIT's and Woffy's running games last year, with VMI & Chatt having mixed results. So, it will be interesting to see how that (the possible rise of Defense-ability by Mercer and Furman vs. the TO) plays out and translates into wins/losses in SoCon games in 2017.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother.

Re: 2017 (Too Early) SoCon Football Predictions

All of those numbers from the Mercer game last year mean exactly JACK ****. Jordan Black, who had never taken a college snap, played Quarterback in that one. Mercer couldn't even stop a guy who had never played on their home field in a game they had 6 months to prepare for.

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